Oh Canada!

Yay for Canada. Marc and I moved to Vancouver in June 2017. Since then, we have been using every opportunity to explore and walk around the gorgeous countryside of BC. I have written soooo many posts since then that I thought it might be good to bring them all together in a new page. For now, I have tried to order the walks so that they increase in difficulty as you scroll down the page. So, if you want to find a truly jelly-leg inducing walk, scroll down to Oh-My-Goodness-My-Legs-Are-Dying-level walks. I’ll do my best to keep updating this page when I add new Canadian posts.

Close to Vancouver:

Vancouver is surrounded by the Sea on one side and backed by mountains to the North. This means it is the perfect starting point for walkers. As we live within the city, most of our walks are close to Vancouver. We don’t have a car yet, so the majority of these are accessible with public transport.

Easy Walks:

Nitobe Memorial Garden:
This is more of a short stroll than a walk. However it IS a stunning place to stroll, so I hope this post will encourage more people to visit it.

Queen Elizabeth Park:
This can be a walk, or if you prefer, you can just drive up the hill to take in the stunning views from Queen Elizabeth Park.

Capilano Suspension Bridge Park:
This is one of the most touristy things we did in Vancouver! It costs $42.50(!) but it was a gorgeous place to visit, so I’d still recommend it.

Dog Mountain
Although this is a mountain, it doesn’t have much elevation gain so it is more like a stroll than a climb. Nevertheless, you still get some stunning views from the viewpoint at the end of the walk!

Pacific Spirit Park
This is another easy walk for after work. We explored the Pacific Spirit Park and then hiked along the coast back to Wreak Beach. This is another walk where you might encounter naked hikers.

North Shore Trail – Whyte lake:
This is an easy circular loop that we attempted in the first snow of November. Whyte lake also seemed like it’d be a lovely place to swim in the summer.

Lighthouse Park Hike:
This is a beautiful walk around the edge of Lighthouse Park. It is on the Western Point of Vancouver’s North Shore, so very easy to get to. It also one of the best place to see old growth trees.

Black Mountain:
This is a quick walk that you can easily manage after work. We hiked up to the top, had a picnic and a swim and made it back down before it was dark! The best part of this walk is the chance to swim on top of a mountain!

Walking along False Creek:
This was our first walk in Canada when we were pretty jet-lagged. This is a fantastic way to get your bearings in Vancouver.

Stanley Park Sea Wall:
This is another one of the obvious Vancouver walks. It is 10km if you walk around the entire sea wall, but you can always hire a bike and explore that way if you can’t walk that far.

Vancouver Beach Walk:
When we explored Vancouver’s beaches, we did a loooong version of this walk. But you could easily shorten it for a quick stretch of your legs. Just be warned the end of the walk might involve naked hikers.

Kennedy Falls:
This walk is a little harder than the other walks above (it was about 6 hours) BUT it isn’t too tough, and the waterfall at the end is totally worth the effort!

Walks that might tire your legs:

Mount Seymour:
This could go in the Easy walk category when it’s not snowing, but it was pretty hard work while the mountain was still covered in snow! It was a good choice as a first mountain!

Grouse Grind:
This is the second most climbed mountain in the world! The Grind is an hour and a half of a natural stair-master, with pretty views from the top!

Dam Mountain:
This is another walk that is probably much easier when it’s not snowing. Dam Mountain is close to the Grouse Grind but has even better views with far fewer people.

Mount Gardner:
A gorgeous hike on the lovely Bowen Island. This walk isn’t tooo hard, but we also included a loop around Killarney Lake, so I was pretty exhausted by the end of the day!

Diez Vistas hike near Bunzen Lake:
This walk is stunning! You climb a small mountain, then hike along the top, looking down at loads of gorgeous views. It even finishes with a swim in a lake.

Goat Mountain:
This is the next Mountain along after Dam Mountain above. This is one of my favourite walks in Vancouver. The effort-to-view pay-off is fantastic. You will be rewarded with perfect 360 degree views of mountains.

Evan’s Peak:
This peak is within the Golden Ears National Park. It was hard work, but worth it with the stunning views of the surrounding mountains from the top!

Oh-My-Goodness-My-Legs-Are-Dying-level Walks:

Coliseum Mountain:
This is one of the MOST amazing walks so far! It was completely exhausting, and turned my legs into jelly but the views from the top were gooorgeous.

Snowshoeing at Brandywine Falls:
This was my first ever attempt at snowshoeing. It was a pretty easy walk along a flat path, but the views of the waterfalls were incredibly beautiful. This is the perfect stop-off between Vancouver and Whistler.

Stawamus Chief:
This is another of the super famous local(ish) walks, so you can expect to see lots and lots of other hikers. It is worth the hard work for the truly stunning views at the top.

Other Parts of Canada:

I don’t have much to add here yet! We visited the Eastern side of Canada a couple of years ago, so I have one post from that trip.

For the record, I blooming love this country! I realise that our language is not quite the same, but I hope my heart is half as open as the sweeties we have met here so far. In the UK our government (and boarder agency) is not particularly nice to migrants. My lovely friends from Japan, NZ, Canada and the US have had nightmares trying to sort out their UK visas. I have been pleasantly surprised by how painless it has been for us to move here, and how welcome I feel. Anyway, thanks for letting us in Canada! I’ll do my best to integrate and visit all your pretty mountains!

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8 thoughts on “Oh Canada!”

Wow moved to Canada!! We visited Whistler last Feb & immediately fell in love with Canada & knew we wanted to see more. We’re going again this coming Feb to Fernie & can’t wait. We snowboard so enjoy the Winter there but would love to see the country for some walking & mountain biking in Summer too 😊 will be following your adventures x